Brush box carries a dense, dark, rounded canopy on a stout trunk, and it is the tree you have walked under on a hundred Sydney and Brisbane streets. The leaves sit in loose whorls at the ends of the shoots, leathery and glossy, with new growth flushing soft bronze. The lower trunk sheds in cinnamon and fawn strips while the upper limbs stay smooth and pale, so even a young tree has something to look at below the canopy. Councils plant it for shade, and shade is still its job.Deep soil separates a good brush box from a poor oneThis is a warm temperate to subtropical east coast species, at home from the mid north coast of New South Wales through south east Queensland, and it holds up in built landscapes where soil is compacted, roots get disturbed and heat bounces off pavement. Small white flowers with fluffy stamens open through the warmer months. Coastal gardens suit it, and it stands salt wind better than most trees of its size, though it is not a plant for cold, frost prone inland districts. Site it as a full sized shade tree rather than a courtyard specimen, well clear of eaves and boundary fences, and expect steady leaf and capsule drop underneath, which rules out a pool surround.The failure mode is soil depth. In deep, open ground it thickens into the canopy people buy it for. Over rock, shallow alkaline ground or builder's fill it stays sparse and awkward for years, and no amount of feeding fixes it. If that describes your site, cultivate and improve a wide planting area rather than digging a narrow hole, or choose a different tree.Brush box or crows ash for a big native canopyThe direct comparison is crows ash. Both are large evergreen Australian natives used for the same civic job, but crows ash comes out of dry rainforest, carries lacquered pinnate foliage and drops hard woody capsules, while brush box holds simple whorled leaves and drops soft litter. Crows ash handles dry heat and poor park soil with less complaint; brush box gives the denser, darker canopy and the more interesting trunk. Brush box also colours its lower trunk with age, which crows ash does not, so it reads better as a single specimen on a lawn. If both are too large for the space, hard quandong does a similar evergreen job at a fraction of the scale. See the range in feature trees.Shaping a young brush boxPrune in late spring or summer, when the tree is in active growth and cuts close over quickly. The work worth doing is early: keep a single leader, remove competing verticals while they are still small, and lift the lower limbs over several seasons so the trunk clears at the height you want. A mature brush box needs no routine pruning and resents heavy reduction of large limbs. Feed in early spring with a slow release fertiliser applied over the root zone out to the edge of the canopy, and mulch generously to keep the surface roots cool. Bark lifting on the lower trunk is normal shedding, not damage, and should be left alone.Choosing a sizeThis plant is available in 12 sizes, from 140mm up to 800L, priced from $16.95 to $8779.00 per plant. The size shown is the pot the plant arrives in, which is the rootball, not the height of the plant. The smaller pots hold younger plants that cost less each and establish quickly, which suits hedges, screens and mass planting where the plant count adds up. The larger sizes carry several more years of growth on the farm and give height and presence straight away, which is what you want for a single feature position or a screen that cannot wait. Not sure which to choose? Read our guide to Australian native trees.
